Haunting Old Ghosts
by Opaque Prision
Summary: Arsenic and Old Lace. When Johnathan sees and old...friend, pain meets his utmost sadistic pleasure. Rated for extreme violence in chapter two  2 .
1. Chapter 1

I watched as cars went by in the window and sighed to myself, thinking of all the insignificant people out there whom I hate. It had been maybe a month since I have gotten out of that humiliating mad house. I had been there for five, maybe six, years. I couldn't be sure and in truth, I didn't care. It's still my life wasted.

I lived in a stark white solitude for five years. The thought kept winding its way around my head. Five years I was locked up, while these idiots below me drove about in their cars, milling around, stabbing each other in the back and lying through their teeth.

I did not envy them. In a sick sort of way, that white room with deafening silence had been mine. During that time, I thought mostly of life. My life. My imprisonment. During and before my crime life.

While I still had a face.

I turned from the window and my attention became focused on the small mirror tucked away in the corner. I glared into it, staring at the scars on my temples and cheeks where that idiot left the incisions and thread. Almost immediately upon arriving at that mad house, I had been admitted to the clinic. My wounds had split open during the altercation with the police and they wanted to make sure I had no infectious disease. The skin never did heal properly.

My face has changed so many times, it is almost a stranger's face to me now. I was never a movie star looker, but I did have some…attractive attributes. I was what some might call _handsome_. I had smooth skin, jutting cheeks, a strong chin. This was years before now. Before I left home. Maybe, had I not turned to a life of crime, I could have found a doll of my own.

I experimented when I was younger. There was one dame that stood out particularly. Sweet, nice, caring. Hard to think she even talked to me. I think she saw _something_. Something that kept her talking to me, something that let her say yes when I offered to take her to get some dinner. There was one problem.

Her old man.

He hated me and stopped us. At that point, he could. We were just starting to leave home; her going to college and me…trying a much different career field. I found out years later, she had married and had a kid.

I also came to think of a young woman in my early days of villainy. Over in Cardiff, I remember her as a tool in my grand scheme and an outlet for my misery. It almost seemed like too soon that she had outlived her purpose. I found out too late that she had a secret. A secret that still almost makes me regret her murder. _Almost_. I have never been the same since. Now I realize that was a crucial turning point in my life.

Because of her and my anger, the inexperienced lad who lived off of bruises and secret nightly stands…metamorphosed into a superior being that lived off of blood and stolen souls.

Souls.

I sold mine that night. I sickenly turn away from the window and gaze back out the window.

'_I wonder how many others have lost theirs'_

The stink of smoke and the mutterings of utter intoxication surround me. I sit at a small table in the shady corner and absently drink the dark liquid. I was trying to drink the memories away. It was to human for me to relive these shadows, as it resurfaced feelings that I didn't want to feel. Feelings I worked hard to get rid of. Sadness, longing, loneliness. Most people don't believe I feel these things. I usually don't, but they unfortunately crop up every now and again.

I look up to see someone enter the bar.

'_But those feelings are gone quicker than they appear'_

My eyes have become glued to the man who just walked in. And _oh_ how I ached to stalk up to him and wrap my fingers around his pale throat. But an idea came to me in a flash of inspiration. I melted into the shadows and waited for him to loose his sobriety. And those minutes ticked by at an agonizing rate, making me burn with red, hot anticipation. My feet tapped and unnatural, erratic rhythm and my fingers twitched.

Maybe two hours passed before hi finally tried to hobble out. With the grace of an expectant tiger, I followed him out and watched as he turned into a dark ally and passed out against a wall.

I walked up to him and dragged him back to my old abandoned flat. It was bleak and out of the way and perfect for what I was about to do.

As I carried him into the empty living room, I tied him to a chair and waited in the shadowy threshold.

He started to stir.

As he lifted his head, groaning, he looked around in the dimly lit room. But when he noticed he was tied to a chair, even _his_ alcohol soaked mind started to panic. AN dhe started to jerk in his restraints.

"I wouldn't do that"

He looked us as I stepped into the dim moonlight. His eyes widened in delicious panic and fear.

"_Ch-chonny_?"

My lips curled into my smuggest, sadistic smirk.

"Hello doctor"


	2. Chapter 2

**I am so sorry Jacob.**

"Ch-chonny" he breathed out.

"Hello doctor"

I strolled around him and was just relishing the emotions rolling off of him. I breathed in deep, as if it were a life force I was sucking out for my own immortality.

"Ch-chonny, I can explain why I left. I didn't think they would-"

"End your infernal blabber" I said distantly.

He's known me long enough to do what he's told. He's felt enough of my wrath and drank away almost as much.

"You left me," I said in a monotone, stepping into the shadows with my back to him, leaning on a small table, "You abandoned me. You broke our deal"

I lit a match and soon a candle was ablaze.

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

"No! Abandoned is such a strong word. More like…took an unexpected vacation"

I lit the rest of the candelabra.

"While I was locked away in prison!"

I whipped around and looked straight at him. He shrinked in his seat and cold, unadulterated fear was ripping from his eyes and a single drop of sweat rolled down him cheek.

"Chonny!" He pleaded.

Quick as a flash of lightning, I was in front of him. Backhanding him across the face, I successfully was able to shut him up. It was nothing compared to what he's dealt with before. And he will beg for that when he goes through what I'm about to do.

I pulled out a measuring tape and very carefully started to measure his head. Crown to chin.

"You seem to be under the impression, Herman," I commented, "that I might have second thoughts. But you see, tonight, when I saw you, I realized I had no need for Mortimer. I will find him eventually yes, but, in my noble mission to show those two bats their place, I failed to see what a perfect chance I had, lying right in front of me the whole time!"

I gripped his shoulder and leaned down to his ear, barely whispering,

"You"

He trembled with fright and the beginnings of a sobbing fit. After all, he was witnessed this before. You knew what was to happen.

"All this time, you were slinking by in the sidelines, mouthing off, making half-assed efforts. _This," _I roughly grabbed his face and forced it to stare at me, " is _your_ handiwork! Look at me. My skin, my face, my scars. Your doing! And for that, you will repay me. With your life!"

And with that, I pulled out my dulled steak knife and rammed it into his arm. His scream filled the room with pure pain and I drunk it in. I twisted the knife, causing tears to stream down his face and a single sob to rack his thin body. I then lifted it out an inch and start tearing his flesh down his arm, the exact measurement of his head.

I ripped the knife out and started the same process on the other arm. Each second that passed, seemed to almost to crescendo to a new pain for him. I must pace myself, before I start rushing. This is an art which should not be rushed. It is to be cherished.

I pulled the knife out, stepped back and admired the scene before me. He was bleeding an obscene amount in the arm area. It was staining his sleeves and starting to drip beautiful, red rubies on the floor. A pattern started to pool itself on the wood.

I stepped into the kitchen and retrieved a spoon. A simple silver spoon. I then placed it into the flame of the melting candle. I grabbed the gallon of gasoline that was placed under the table. I had bought it from the nearby gas station while he was out. I opened the cap, slowly pouring the toxic liquid onto his arms, covering the jagged openings. He hissed and jerked as his arms started burning and he felt the gasoline slowly poison his blood.

"You seem to prefer alcohol poisoning your blood" I mused.

"All this time, watching you drink was sickening. Though amusing at times, watching you botch yourself into rather… compromising positions. I never understood your drunken obsession with hookers"

It confounded me why he would always go for ones with…never mind. Clear mind. This is not the time to bring up scarring events. Now is the time to _make_ them.

"These years, you have been merely preparing yourself for this. All the stupid things you cost us, cost _me_. All that drink slowly killing you, I feel almost cheated. I wonder how much more alive you could have been now if not for those accursed spirits! But you always knew that"

I grabbed his right hand and twisted his fingers until I heard five distinct snaps.

He screamed.

"In fact, I would never have seen you this night were it not for your drunken addiction"

I took my knife and cut off the broken appendages. Then, standing in front of him, I started to carve holes in his face. Four distinct, bleeding gaps in his face. My heart skipped in my chest each time I heard the scrapping sound of knife hitting bone and saw him spasm. I then shoved one severed digit into each hole. His skin was stretching over the unwanted accommodations. I grabbed his jaw and forced his mouth open, shoving his thumb in and closing the whole, pinning his lips shut with a dull needle, so he could not spit out the digit and mock my glorious plan. Silent tears, tinted red glided down his distorted cheeks.

I went back over to the candelabra and, using a rag, removed the glowing red spoon from the heat and crossed back over to the doctor.

"Hope this hurts"

I then glided the spoon across the pale flesh of his neck, branding the initials _H.E. _The skin becoming a reddish-brown from the burning touch of the smooth metal.

" I remember," I drawled, ",when I awoke from the morphine. You said everything went perfect. But there was a look in you're eye. And when you took off the bandages, your eyes betrayed what had happened before I saw it myself. Those eyes"

And I shoved the spoon into his left eye socket. His eye pushed to the side unnaturally and he let out a shriek followed by a choke due to the finger that almost fell into his throat. I started to forcibly jerk the spoon around and finally the eye became un attached with a jerk and I popped it out of his skull.

As I looked into the socket, I was struck with intrigue at how the tears seemed to pull in the empty hole. I shook my head and returned to much more sadistic thoughts.

I walked around behind him and started to talk again.

"I may be able to take away an eye, but I know that I will never be able to take away the thoughts of disgust that you aimed at me. And that is what this is for"

Grabbing his uninjured hand, I slammed it onto the arm rest of his chair, forcing the eyeball into his palm and pulling a long metal mail and hammer from my belt loop. I slammed the face of the hammer onto the nail, impaling his hand and somewhat crushing the eye. He did another choke/scream. I then dropped the still-hot spoon into his shirt pocket to cool.

"Remember when we met?"

I leaned on the side of his chair as I talked.

"That whore that was mine and the incompetent moron you used to work for?"

He stopped squirming for a moment and turned, just an inch, towards me.

I chuckled darkly.

"You think I forgot? So did I. It was maybe a year or two ago that I was thinking in my cell. I thought of her. Of how it ended. The doctor you were apprentice too seemed to take particular pleasure in controlling your every move."

I stopped a moment in thought.

"You saved my life"

He seemed to let out the tiniest little sigh I have ever heard.

"You think that gets you off the hook?"

He tensed up.

"I know why you did it doctor. After what you had done to his daughter, he was going to kill you himself. You killed him, not for me, but for yourself"

I stepped in front of him and looked at him in the eye.

"And that is why I owe you nothing"

I started to pace around him again.

"Tell me doctor, which ear do you prefer?"

He said nothing, but hung his head in defeat. He knew what was coming next and how futile it was to answer that question. If he even could between the pain and the finger still lodged in his mouth.

"You remember correctly doctor, I never care about answers"

I slashed my knife down the side of his head, hacking at the cartilage and removing his right ear.

"I just care about pain. _Your _pain._"_

Hell knows, he's cost me enough. And with that thought in mind, I shoved his ear into his empty socket and some of the tears that were pooling there, sloshed out in a mix of blood and salty water.\

I said nothing as I stood again in front of him and took hold of the bridge of his nose. I then started to slowly carve away at this facial feature. He's done it to me many times. Time to pay back the favor.

His eye was shut and his mouth was in a rigid line and I felt a last sort of protest. He was trying to deny me the satisfaction of hearing him in pain.

I frowned and pulled out the knife, placed the flat of it on the point of his nose and slammed my hand down on it, successfully crushing it completely and starting a fountain of blood.

'_Try to fix that one doctor' _I smirked.

His eyes were leaking a river and there was a squeal that ripped itself from his throat.

I swiped the knife down once more and the nose came off. I placed it in this shirt pocket with the spoon.

I walked over to the candelabra and grabbed the silver base. I then carried it over to him and held it in front of his face.

"These flames, so bright so lively, yes _so_ easily put out"

I took my thumb and forefinger and snuffed the middle candle out.

"Just like your life"

I carefully took the two remaining candles and stuck them straight into his arm wounds. As the hot wax dripped down the candle sticks and into the still raw wounds, he seemed increasingly weak. He didn't cry anymore and his head hung so low, you would think it was detached. He merely groaned at the hot wax and he seemed to except his certain death that was to happen in a few moments. His eyes were closed and if I did not know him so well, I would have said he was praying to the God my aunties were so keen on believing in, just asking for forgiveness and even mercy.

'_There is no mercy'_

"Doctor?"

He lifted his head with the final bit of his strength.

I smiled wickedly.

"Goodbye"

I then tipped the candles and I jumped back as the flames struck the gasoline and burst into an explosion of heat and fire. I stared at the dark blob in the middle and started to laugh and soon was breaking down into a fit of demonic shrieking at my gloriously damned triumph. I distantly thought that the only thing that could make this better is if I had some marshmallows to roast over the fire.

Still laughing, I exited the building, walked into town, and called a cab.

Five hours later, I had the best sleep I'd ever had on a one-way trip to Bermuda.


End file.
